Seller financing in Orange County

[Trina P.]

My husband and I would love to get into a nicer home and we live in Orange County. We are sick of renting but, if you live around here you know how difficult it is to transition to buying. We really want to live in areas with great school districts but understand it comes with higher prices. We are in our mid-late 20s with excellent credit. We don't really want to go above $2200/mo for either rent or mortgage. We are open to buying a fixer upper but realize it's going to be tricky to get affordable financing.

We are considering seller financing. We actually found this site tonight http://www.notrent.com/

Thoughts? Good idea? Bad Idea? Any other options?

Thanks so much for your help!

[David Faulkner]

Originally posted by @Joe Homs:

@Trina P.  You were speaking about "creative financing" so AITD "All Inclusive Trust Deed" is just another form of creative financing where you would wrap the underlying loan on a property, have the seller create a second and then you would pay on both with little or NO money down.  Very rare right now.  PITIA is short for Principal, Interest, Taxes, Insurance and Association fees.

It's NOT the time to buy and hold right now as we are back to the peak home prices before the last bubble.  I only flip homes right now in Orange County.  Just back from bidding at the court house steps and its getting crazy there as well.

Good Investing.

I agree with this ... the way that I got started and eventually was able to work my way back into OC is with a concept that seems to have vanished unfortunately but is still very much valid: the starter home. That is, either something that is a bit further out (usually East) and/or a bit smaller or in a less desirable neighborhood (like a 2 BR condo or townhome in say Anaheim, as mentioned) that is not yet your dream home but a place to build some sweat equity, to a large extent fix your cost of living here, and establish the beginnings of your local RE portfolio. I did this with a small 2 BR house in Glendale, then larger 3 BR houses in Antelope Valley, and then once I had grown my portfolio, I could comfortably afford to move to a 4 BR house in Huntington Beach. They were all purchased at opportune times, after a RE crash and/or recession, though, and the other key is every time I moved I kept the old property and turned it into a rental. It takes time, patience, and disciplined, but I'm living proof that it is possible.